


Cold Hearts

by oh_fudgecakes



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Happy Ending, M/M, an instance of sacrificial self harm, mentioned past child murder, this is really more dark fairytale than horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 05:33:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_fudgecakes/pseuds/oh_fudgecakes
Summary: There is an old legend that if a ghoul drinks the blood of seven human hearts, it can become human. As a mysterious illness racks the coal mining town where Yuuri lives, Yuuri makes a pact with a lake ghoul to save his ailing mother: when she is well again, he will allow the ghoul to eat his heart.In which Viktor is the ghoul of a rapidly dying lake, desperately trying to become human so he can live another day, and Yuuri is his seventh heart. This was my entry for the YOI Horror Zine.





	Cold Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Riki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riki/gifts).

> Thank you Riki for cheering me on and giving me so much support when I was in the process of writing this!!! <3<3

Midwinter — cold weather, colder hearts. Creeping through the darkened woods, he clutches tight at the silver chain around his neck. Skeletal trees reach up towards the starless sky like beseeching hands, lit only by the moon. This is a godforsaken place he lives in, that has driven him to where he is now. His heart beats in his ears as he steps through the last of the foliage, onto the banks of what had once been a lake. He kneels by the deadened waters.

“My mother is sick,” he whispers hoarsely, “ _ Help _ me.”

And the lake rises in terrible answer.  
  


* * *

  
He wakes in a dream. In that dream, the mist rises slowly off a frozen lake, and a young, white-haired man stands half-concealed on the ice. He pulls a long strand from his head.  _ Put this around her neck,  _ he says.  _ I will eat your heart when she is well again. _

When he opens his eyes, he is in bed, a silver strand on his pillow. He brings it to his mother’s sickbed, and ties it around her neck. There is an old legend that if a ghoul drinks the blood of seven human hearts, it can become human. Yuuri doesn’t know why any ghoul would want that. 

In his boyhood, he remembers running amidst golden fields, catching fish in the nearby streams with his bare hands. Then, he’d used to play in the woods during the long afternoons with the sunlight filtering down and the leaves gently a-sway in the wind. Then, the woods had been a sort of paradise where the birds sang and where flowers grew.

Those days are long dead. The winters only grow colder with every passing year, the woods more hostile, the storms harsher. Even the animals have begun to flee; every year, he sees herds of deer moving for milder climates, birds migrating, fish swarming downstream, leaving behind creatures of a more malevolent sort. More and more, people have been getting sick, and ghouls have been preying on the living. Darker and darker, the trees deaden and the soil blackens, like a shadowy hand spreading colossal fingers over the wood.

_ Death-touched  _ is the name of illness.  _ Death-touched _ is the name of misfortune. Ma has been in bed for weeks. If the village realizes, they will cast her out _ .  _ Yuuri will not allow that, and so he sets out for the library in her stead. He will take over her duties until she is well again.

* * *

A young woman sits next to him near to closing time. “Hey,” she whispers, “Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? It’s been awhile since we last had the time to talk.”

It’s Yuuko. She is resting one hand on her belly, which protrudes almost obscenely beneath her maternity slip. The baby is getting big, unusually so, and does not seem to be stopping anytime soon. Her pregnancy has been an extremely difficult one.

“Of course,” he indulges.

After he locks the library up for the night, he heads down to the opposite side of town. The house warms with the honeyed scent of roast chicken and the deep rumble of Takeshi’s singing voice from the kitchen. Yuuri sits at the table with Yuuko, talking and laughing over cocoa. As Takeshi joins them at the table, however, the mood seems to sober.

“Yuuko and I are thinking of moving to the city,” Takeshi admits. It hits him like cold water. He should have expected it really. Five villagers have been killed by the lake in the last two winters. The sickness is spreading,  _ worsening.  _ The symptoms are distinctive. First comes a hacking cough, then the chills, then the purging. Ma has not been able to keep anything down for nearly a week. Every time she eats or drinks, it comes back up, blackened and bloodied. No one knows how to cure it. No one knows what it is.

They know only the cause. “The ghouls are only growing more hostile,” Yuuko whispers, “This is not the right place to raise a child.”  
  


* * *

  
That night, he finds himself back at the lake. The white-haired man is crouched by the bank, drawing in short, pained breaths. Dark liquid splatters to the icy ground, thick, and black, as his body convulses. Yuuri draws back against a tree trunk, horrified.  
  


* * *

  
The days pass. He no longer dreams like he used to. Instead, he dreams only of the young man, always crouched by the lake, and always hurting. It's a funny feeling, really — living on borrowed time. He is constantly reminded that he ought to be doing something more important with what’s left of his life. He tries to spend more time with his family, caring for Ma, bringing Pa lunch at the mines, chatting with Mari between her shifts at the coal processing plant. Otherwise, he is painfully aware that there is nothing very important he can do. Instead, he finds refuge in reading, in the way it takes him out of his life and into the world.

There, he chances upon an old article. It had appeared on the front page: an albino youth, drowned in the lake by his mother. Yuuri recognizes the photo.  
  


* * *

  
When he dreams again that night, he approaches the young man quietly, and holds his long hair back as he heaves and gasps. He rests a hand on his back as the purging dies.

“Your name is Viktor, isn't it?” Yuuri whispers, “I found your obituary. I'm so sorry.”

Viktor sniffs and straightens, tucking his hair behind his ears. “She thought of me as death-touched,” he says, “When people started getting sick, she blamed it on me, when actually it was the mine that was killing us all.”

Yuuri frowns. “The mines?” he asks.

Viktor smiles. “You poisoned the waters you drink, the fish you eat, and the crops you water,” he says, “and then you say that the illness was created by me. I have no such power. It’s killing the lake, and once the lake is dead, I’ll die too. There is nothing I can do to stop it. I can only become human. One last heart, and it will be done.”

The last heart will be Yuuri’s then. “But you know,” Yuuri points out, “humans die too.”

Viktor looks down into his lap. “I know that,” he says, “But I’m not ready to die yet. Before I die, I want know what it’s like to be loved.”  
  


* * *

  
At the end of the week, Takeshi brings the children in for their weekly reading time. Young Yuri comes up to him with a book almost immediately, stamping his foot when Yuuri tries to put it back on the shelf. It takes him a moment to realize what Yuri wants.

“You want me to read to you?” he asks, and Yuri nods. Yuuri smiles. “Alright then.”

Yuri opens the book to one of the stories, and sits down to listen as Yuuri begins to read. The story tells the tale of the snow maiden, who yearned for company, but was unable to feel love because she was made of snow. Eventually however, she grew to love a young shepherd from a nearby village, but as her heart warmed with love — Yuuri pauses there.

“— she melted,” he finishes. What a morbid end to a children’s fairytale.

Yuri tilts his head, just blinking at Yuuri for a few long moments. Yuuri clears his throat as Takeshi stands up. “Go along now,” he whispers, “I’ll see you again next week.”

Yuri frowns, but joins the rest of the children as they file out of the library. Beside him, a teacher tuts as she follows. “You shouldn’t be spending so much time with him,” she mutters, “There’s something not right about that boy.”

She closes the door behind her. It leaves a bad taste in Yuuri’s mouth. There had been an incident after Yuri was born. His mother had brought him out of the village in the dead of night, and Yuri had appeared on the kindergarten’s doorstep in the morning, his hair turned mysteriously white. His mother’s mutilated corpse had been found by the lake.  
  


* * *

  
“She tried to drown him,” Viktor tells him later that night.

Yuuri turns away, putting his hands over his mouth. He's always known that human hearts could be cold — colder even, sometimes, than ghouls. “But you saved him,” he whispers.

“I wanted him to have a chance to be loved,” Viktor admits,“The way I never did.”

And that makes Yuuri  _ hurt. _

“Someone will love you, Viktor,” he whispers, “One day, someone will.”  
  


* * *

  
Winter peaks, and wanes into spring. Ma wakes, day by day. She begins to eat again, begins to smile, begins to laugh. Yet, as if in mirror, Viktor is only getting sicker. The purging wracks him for hours, night after night. Yet, he always has a smile for Yuuri. Viktor, Yuuri knows, is older than he looks, but he has a young heart, gentle, and full of endless questions about the outside world. When he is well, they can spend hours just talking. Waking to the smell of Ma’s cooking is a daily reminder that this will soon end. Once she is fully recovered, Viktor will take his heart.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, Viktor will become human then. He’ll begin a new, pain-free life, a second chance, and eventually, he’ll find love. But the thought of him living a life without Yuuri hurts_._ _I love him,_ Yuuri realizes then. He doesn’t want to let go of this dream.

_ Is it so selfish of me,  _ he wonders,  __ to want to stay by his side?  
  


* * *

  
Near the end of the month, Ma resumes her job at the library. Yuuko and Takeshi come over for a celebratory dinner. Mari returns early from her shift at the plant. Pa cooks.

“Yuuko and I will be moving to the city soon,” Takeshi announces at the table, “We’re just glad to see you recover before we leave, Auntie.”

“Oh, that's such a pity,” Ma sighs, “Remember to come back and visit!”

“We will,” Yuuko reassures her, putting a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, “Just call on us if you are ever in the city.”

The conversation turns to the happier matter of Yuuko’s pregnancy. Surrounded by laughter and the people he loves most, Yuuri smiles. This is the best goodbye he knows how to give.  
  


* * *

  
That night, he finds himself back at the lake.

“It's time,” he says.

Viktor watches him, an unfathomable look on his face.

“No.”  
  


* * *

  
And for the first time in nearly a month, Yuuri wakes in the middle of the night. He sits there for a moment, shocked, before bursting into action, getting dressed, flying out the door. The real lake is nothing like the lake in his dreams. All that’s left is a dark crater in the ice. Yuuri sits against a tree, and closes his eyes. It takes him awhile, keyed up as he is, but once asleep, Viktor is there, as always, in his dreams.

“I love you,” Viktor says bitterly, and turns away, “Now  _ go _ . Live the rest of your life.”

Yuuri kneels beside him. “No,” he says — and pulls Viktor into a kiss.

He knows then that he will never forget the way this feels: the way Viktor fits so beautifully into his arms, and the way their hearts beat, somehow, as one. There has never been anyone he’s loved like this, and he knows in his heart that there will never be another.

“No,” he whispers again, “No, I will  _ never  _ leave.”  
  


* * *

  
But love does not solve all problems, no matter how much they wish it would. While Ma is better than ever, Viktor is ailing away, and there’s  _ nothing _ Yuuri can do to ease his pain. He can only hold Viktor, can only whisper to him, kissing his face gently. He begins to search the library, hoping to find some sort of arcane solution. All he finds are superstitions. Still the purging intensifies, wracking Viktor’s body until finally, one day — it just stops.

When he falls asleep that night, he knows at once that something is wrong. He dreams of Viktor sleeping by the lakeside, tossing and shivering. He does not wake up, no matter what Yuuri does. Yuuri calls Viktor’s name over and over, until he wakes suddenly, in his bed. He rolls over, closes his eyes, and descends into a nightmare. In this nightmare, Viktor twists and writhes in his arms, eyes blank with agony,  _ melting, melting into water. _

He wakes into another dream. “Yuuri,” Viktor murmurs weakly to him. “Yuuri, hush. You’re having a nightmare. I’m here now, love.” But even as he speaks, he is nodding off again.

“Viktor!” Yuuri cries, “Viktor, stay with me—”

He wakes once more, and this time, he cannot enter the dream again. He sits up and puts his head in his hands. He needs to do something — but what  _ can  _ he do?  _ More than just sit here,  _ he thinks, and gets up. He pauses as he catches sight of the coal plant through his window.  
  


* * *

  
He gets in through a broken latch, and gets to work immediately, sloshing kerosene along the walls. This will scare off the owners of the plant and mine, he thinks desperately. His hands are shaking, but he eventually manages to light the match. As the flames roars furiously to life, he drops the matchbox, and  _ runs. _

“Oi!” an angry voice calls as he climbs from a window, “What do you think you're doing?” 

He turns in time to see a big burly man, already almost on top of him— a night guard. He turns to run— but something hard and heavy strikes him over the head—

And everything goes dark.  
  


* * *

  
“Yuuri,” someone hisses, shaking him fiercely,  _ “Yuuri!” _

He opens his eyes. Mari is crouched over him, expression tense. He is inside the village jail. It's still dark outside, but he can hear angry shouting from the square. She stands and throws the door to his cell open.“You need to leave,  _ now,”  _ she whispers harshly, “The village thinks that you were possessed by a ghoul.  _ They want to burn you.” _

Yuuri stands, numbly. “But where will I go?” he asks, “What will I do?”

Mari presses a hunting knife into his hands. “Find Yuuko in the city,” she instructs, “Now  _ go.  _ Run as fast as you can. The villagers will be here for you soon—  _ Go! _ _”_  
  


* * *

  
He tears through the darkened woods, pushing blindly through the leaves. Over his panicked breathing, he can hear the angry shouts, the loud footfall of his pursuers. The fire of their torches cut through the trees, casting a flickering bloody sheen over the leaves. Eventually, however, they stop their pursuit, unwilling to venture further into the woods at night.

Yuuri stumbles out of the trees, falling to his knees by the dead lake.  _ Let me see him,  _ he thinks desperately,  _ let me through _ . He closes his eyes, and Viktor is there, curled up by the lake, shivering. Yuuri cannot wake him. Viktor shudders violently in Yuuri’s arms for long minutes, as Yuuri calls his name. Then all of a sudden, he goes perfectly still.

Yuuri wakes up by the lake. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is his white-knuckled fingers, wrapped tightly around the hilt of the hunting knife. He sits up, kneeling numbly by the lake, and stares at his reflection in the blade.  _ One last heart,  _ he remembers.

“Viktor,” he whispers, “Please forgive me.”

He presses the blade over his heart— and drives it  __ in.  
  


* * *

  
In fever dreams, he curls up against Viktor’s body. There is blood, blood everywhere, over his hands, over his face, over his whole front. Deliriously, he smears it over Viktor’s lips, Viktor’s face so young and so peaceful in sleep. Yuuri leans down and kisses him one last time.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, “Goodbye, my love.”

Closing his eyes, he lays his head against Viktor’s chest, and lets darkness take him.

_ Yuuri,  _ someone is crying out.  _ Stay with me, Yuuri. Please! _

When he wakes, he is by the lake again. Viktor is there too, holding him. “Yuuri,” he is sobbing. It's not a dream. Viktor is real and warm, and the lake — this is the real lake, the dead one, not the one of his dreams. Yuuri sits up, slowly.

“What,” he begins, “ _ happened?” _

Viktor sucks in a breath, managing, somehow, to contain his sobs. “I don't know,” he hiccups, “There was so much blood, and then, suddenly, I woke up here.”

The knife is lying discarded on the ground next to them. When Yuuri picks it up, he can see in the blade that his hair has gone white. Somehow, and Yuuri isn't sure how, it seems that they are both alive, and human. As Viktor collapses into his arms, however, still sobbing, he lets the thought slip away. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Hush now, love, I’m here,” he whispers, “We’re  _ both _ here.”

They’re here, _together, _and that’s all that matters. He presses his smile to Viktor’s hair, and closes his eyes. Above the silent trees, the first lilac streaks of twilight brighten the sky.  



End file.
